The Responsibility of the Victim

How Locus of Control Influences Recovery

The Delinquent Academic

Apr 23, 2023

Running. Running. Running.

Running.

Keep fucking running.

You’re gonna die. You can’t escape.

You’ll never escape.

But keep trying.

Running.

Running!

You might die. But you still probably will. There’s a minuscule chance you’ll survive.

Running.

Running where?

To escape.

But you can’t escape.

Running.

Trees to my left. Cars flashing, hooning, to my right.

Running.

Death descends from the midnight sky. Keep running.

Bush and trees to my left. Cars flashing, hooning, turning, maybe a cyclist, to my right.

Running.

Now in the bright. Sun above the mountains just. Purple sky.

Running. Keep running.

But where? To escape death. You might be able to.

The commentator says: “We thought he was done for! Now he has a chance to win the infinity metre race!”

Running. Running.

There’s a lake. The sun sheens off its surface. Beautiful. I’ve been here before.

Running.

That’s the forest and bush beside the golf course, on my left. That’s the main road out of town, on my right.

Running. Just keep fucking running. You can make it! At least try!

There are people around. A woman pushing her stroller. Another runner? Yes, another runner.

PLEASE HELP! SOMEONE!

Where’s the runner running to? Are they trying to escape death? No, that's nonsense. Look at their clothes. They’re in running clothes. They’re practising for their run to escape death. The infinity metre race.

Wait what I am wearing? Stop. Perplexed. Thermals and socks. I look up. Snowy mountains. Perfect lake. Cars swinging by. Ski racks. Cyclists. Runners. This is my home town?

“He’s taken a pause mid-race. What is he doing! He’s going to lose the infinity metre race!”

Keep running! But turn, and go the other way. Go back the way you came. Yes!

Where am I running to?

It’s not black, it’s not the midnight sky. It’s warmth. I need warmth. It’s so cold!

It’s fucking freezing.

Keep running.

Running.

You’re gonna make it. You can do this.

Running.

Faster!

“I can’t believe this! What a come from behind victory this will be. He was definitely going to lose the infinity metre race and be expelled, but somehow he’s run himself into the lead!”

There’s the gate. The cars. Subaru. Yes, that's it.

Stones. Ow. Fucking stones on my cold feet. Fuck.

I smash open the gate. Stumble up the stairs. The sliding door is open. I stop, in the middle of the living room. It looks different from what I remember. In the kitchen there’s glass over the floor. I turn and look at the glass sliding door once more, and notice it’s smashed, everywhere. I go into the toilet, and see toothbrushes, tooth paste, ointments, scattered around the place. What the fuck?

I come out into the lounge. You’re not dead and you’re not going to die. But what happened?

My head fucking hurts. My legs, especially my calves, fucking hurt. There’s blood dripping on the carpet. It’s from a cut on my hand. There’s a huge bump on my forehead.

I sigh.

I sit on the couch, my head in my hands, smearing the blood on my cheek. I just want to be hugged. By anyone. Please, I want to be hugged. I don’t care.

Please.

I’ve had a seizure.

I’ve had epilepsy since I was 18. The first seizure was at the gym with my dad. The only other person in the gym at that time was a Doctor. Without emotions. He said that he thought I might have a brain tumour. I didn’t because a couple months later I had another seizure. This time at a friend's house after a night of partying. One seizure - anything. Two seizures - epilepsy.

I’m 30 now. And have had many seizures. In many odd places. It’s usually in the morning, right after waking. I’ll be doing something, talking, brushing my teeth, naked in the shower, whatever, and then I’ll stop, stare into the distance, as if I’m no longer conscious, or am suddenly controlled by another entity. Then I shake, viciously, smashing everything nearby. The possession doesn’t end there. Afterward I’m demonic. Aggressive. Strange. Lacking motor coordination. I will fight close friends or my brothers if they happen to be there. I’ll run down roads if I’m by myself. If I’m in public, I’ll say and do odd things. I never remember anything. Usually, after about ten-fifteen minutes, I’ll slowly come to, like I tried to describe above. When I do, I experience impossible dread. Impossible in the sense that for several minutes I believe I am going to die.

I’ve had seizures at home, at work; in cafes, in planes…

One time, on a flight from Hawaii to Auckland, I woke up to discover myself strapped to my seat with multiple extra airplane belts. Frowning, I turned to my brother. He glanced at me and shook his head.

Seizures on a plane.

Over the first four-five years, I had heaps. Multiple a month. I didn’t tell my parents about a lot of them. They’d be too worried, I thought.

Apparently, the main reason my neurologist told me I was having so many seizures, more than I should have, was because the anticonvulsant medications weren’t working. That, and the dose level. Eventually we landed on Epilim, or Sodium Valproate. That was when I was around 22.

I always knew, that despite it probably being true that the type and amount of drug had an effect, that wasn’t the main thing that was causing my seizures.

As I got older, more mature, and less selfish, I started to think more about why I didn’t tell my parents about some of my seizures. Whenever I had one, it obviously hurt them. You can die from having a seizure. My uncle's best friend did. My mother’s reactions - often she would cry - started to make me feel guilty. I knew why.

Since I had been diagnosed, I had spent four years partying. Smoking. Drinking. Drugging. Eating dogshit. Not sleeping. All of these things are major risk-factors for causing a seizure. But the biggest one of all was simply not taking my medication. I was so lazy, I often couldn’t be bothered. Then after a few days of the medication passing out of my blood, along with smoking, drinking, drugging, not sleeping, boom. Seizure. Then I would be sad for a day. Start taking my medication. Then maybe a week or two later I would get complacent. Cycle, repeat.

It took me about five or six bloody years to realise that my actions were hurting others. It was me who had control over my seizure destiny, not some horrible external force, like Satan, or luck, or a diagnosis. All I had to do was party a little less, and take my fucking medication. And would you look at that! The frequency of seizures dropped dramatically to the point where now, as I’m writing this, I’ve gone the longest stretch since being diagnosed without having a seizure. One whole year. I can officially get my license. I am finally allowed to drive. More importantly, I have eased both my own suffering and my parents by taking control, and taking responsibility.

In psychology, Internal Locus of Control is the belief one’s own actions and decisions influence events in their lives - their future is within their control. By contrast, External Locus of Control is the opposite, the belief that luck, fate, and powerful others, determine the events in their lives - their future is outside their control (Rotter, 1966, 1990). Like many other psychological constructs, people fit on a spectrum. Some people feel empowered, some don’t.

Having an Internal Locus of Control is associated with many positive outcomes, like staying in school (Ekstrom et al., 1986), and high school achievement (Tesiny et al.,1980) being independent, taking responsibility, and employing self-control (Lefcourt, 1976), deferring short-term rewards for long-term goals (Miller, 1978), positive job outcomes like performance, motivation, and satisfaction (Ng et al., 2006), being able to save money more effectively (Bucciol & Trucchi, 2021) and improved immunity and better cardiovascular functioning (Pagnini et al., 2016).

By contrast, having an External Locus of Control is associated with many negative outcomes, like increased risk of depression and psychotic experiences in children (Sullivan et al., 2017), psychopathological symptoms for adolescents in both individualist and collectivist cultures (Moreira et al, 2020), depression in adults (Tobin & Raymundo, 2010), personality disorders and schizophrenia (Pryer & Steinke 1973), obesity and lack of intention to eat a healthy diet (Frosch et al., 2005), and anxiety disorders (Archer, 1979).

Logically, these contrasting outcomes make sense. One is optimistic, empowering, future-focussed - “I can lay the road ahead of me”; one is pessimistic, defeating, past-focused “the road ahead of me was laid by other powerful people and things”. Importantly, the former believes they have tools and skills that can overcome challenges on that road ahead. They can lay the road around a tree, happily; or build a bridge over a stream. For the latter, since the road has already been built, they simply follow where it leads, even if it goes directly off a cliff.

Over time, with my epilepsy, I slowly realised I had tools and skills available to me. My suffering and my family’s was not outside of my control, a road built before me by cruel luck of a genetic flavour. It was inside my control. And on reflection, embarrassingly so. All I had to do was take those godman pills, and stop terrorising my body and brain by partying so much.

Those that take a similar perspective, that believe they have control over their future and desire to take responsibility for it, that have suffered loss, disease, injury, and psychopathology they do not deserve, show remarkable recovery, far greater and more impressive than mine.

Internal Locus of Control when compared to External Locus of Control is associated with greater recovery and outcomes across a vast range of unfortunate circumstances and ailments, like coronary artery disease (Bergvik et al., 2011), schizophrenia (Harrow et al., 2009), depression (Brown et al., 2000), obesity (Cohen & Alpert 1978; Adolfsson et al., 2005), diabetes (Tillotson & Smith, 1996), alcoholism (Murray et al., 2003) and likelihood and severity of relapse from alcoholism (Koski-Jännes, 1994), injury in athletes (Murphy et al., 1999), quality of life and physical function in the elderly a year after life-threatening hospitalisation (Milte et al., 2015), and physical disability (Partridge & Johnston, 1989). …

I could go on. It’s never ending.

Of course, there are other factors that affect recovery, like the strength of one’s support system, socio-economic status, access to health services and so on. But the research is clear: Those that believe they have greater control over their lives and take responsibility, recover faster, more completely, and thus suffer less, themselves and their families.

On Instagram the other day, I saw a paraplegic man on a sit-ski do a double backflip off a huge kicker - the same kicker only two years earlier where he broke his back and lost the feeling in his legs. My best friend lost his father last year. In response he’s matured immeasurably, coping in the forever absence of his mentor - to the point where now he’s making jokes about his horrible loss. My other best friend lost both his parents while he was a teenager. Now he works in parliament.

It’s truly inspiring.

Yet these stories were only possible because they came to believe - it was not an instantaneous process - that their future was not determined by luck, chance, fate, or powerful others. They, with the help of close friends and family and time, realised they have tools and skills in their armoury that can lay the road ahead above or around any obstacle. We rarely hear of the stories where someone did believe the black hole to be their destiny, because they never returned to tell the story.

What I’m saying essentially, is that if misfortune does hit you, if sadness flattens you like a dense fog, a broken leg forces you into a cast, or you break up with the person you thought you would marry; if you believe the road is already laid, that cliff is waiting for you.

And it’s a long climb back up. Not only are you hurting yourself, but you're hurting the people around you.

So, let’s keep trying to take responsibility. Even if we are the victim.

Chur,

The Delinquent Academic